Election denialism is fervent in S.F.
Americans should be proud of themselves. All across the nation, they gave anti-democracy election deniers the heave-ho in last week’s election. In the immortal words of Martha Stewart: “It’s a good thing.”
Unfortunately, election denialism is alive and well. And, sadly, that’s as true in San Francisco as it is in red states.
So-called “progressive” leaders have spent the better part of a week since the election decrying the results in supervisorial District 6, where Matt Dorsey has prevailed against a challenge by Honey Mahogany, and in District 4, where Joel Engardio defeated incumbent Supervisor Gordon Mar.
Their central claim is that because their preferred candidates are losing, the charter-mandated redistricting process must be to blame. This is a flagrantly dishonest attempt to undermine the integrity of San Francisco’s elections, and the leaders engaged in this Trumplike rhetoric should know better.
San Francisco’s redistricting process occurs every 10 years after the census. It adjusts supervisorial district boundaries to have an equal population so that everyone has an equal vote. The mayor, the Board of Supervisors and the Elections Commission each appoint three members to a task force so that no single elected official can draw district boundaries to their benefit.
And yet, according to Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s former legislative aide, Lee Hepner, Districts Four and Six were redrawn “to undermine the progressive vote.” 48 Hills Editor Tim Redmond wrote that the Redistricting Task Force intentionally drew more conservative districts to hurt progressives. Supervisor Dean Preston called the redistricting process “corrupt” and the districts “gerrymandered.”
This isn’t Preston’s first attack on the nonpartisan redistricting process. When the task force considered a draft map that wasn’t of his exact choosing, Preston championed the purging of three independent members from the task force at the 11th hour.
This attack on our local democracy is as shameful as it is delusional. According to a Chronicle analysis, the redistricting process had little impact on the partisan lean of districts.
What is true is this: Prior to redistricting, San Francisco’s 11 supervisorial districts were unequal in size, population and growth. During the past decade, our city’s population grew unequally, due to unevenly distributed new housing development.
In the prior decade, District Six (South of Market) added 15,853 housing units. District 4 (Sunset) added only 76 units, or less than 1 home for every 200 added in District Six. As a result, going into redistricting, District Six had a population that was 30% more than legally allowed and District Four had a population 8% below the legal minimum. It would have been anathema to the principle of “one person, one vote” to allow inequality like that to continue.
Close elections are a hallmark of San Francisco’s democracy. What do state Sen. Scott Wiener, Mayor London Breed, Assembly Member Matt Haney and former Assembly Member David Chiu, ousted District Attorney Chesa Boudin, nearly every Board of Education commissioner, Supervisors Catherine Stefani, Connie Chan, Ahsha Safaí, and yes, even Preston, all have in common? They won races that were decided by less than 3% of voters. Chan and Preston’s races were decided by fewer than 200 votes.
Given the perpetual closeness of races, it’s a foregone conclusion that some outcomes could shift as a result of minor boundary changes. But the purpose of redistricting is not to enshrine the power of elected incumbents; it’s to ensure that every voter in San Francisco has equal representation.
For too long, the composition of the Board of Supervisors has failed to reflect the will of the people. San Franciscans are deeply unhappy with their representative body: The San Francisco Standard found that the board had a negative 54% net approval rating, and a Chronicle poll found that only 12% of San Franciscans thought that supervisors were doing a good job.
Think about it — how does San Francisco elect leaders like Breed, Wiener, now City Attorney Chiu and District Attorney Brooke Jenkins citywide, but have a Board of Supervisors that fights them tooth and nail at every turn? Why did a majority of supervisors oppose the recent Board of Education and district attorney recalls when a majority of San Franciscans voted them out?
That dynamic is only possible in a city where the disconnect between the Board of Supervisors and the public has become enormous. The supervisors’ failure to recognize that chasm is not a justification to undermine trust in the democratic process. Detractors have every right to be upset about election results, but they don’t get to invalidate them.
Redistricting strengthened democracy in San Francisco. It addressed our absurd and unequal population imbalances, and our city is better for it. We can’t let anyone fault our democratic processes to delegitimize election results they don’t like. Whether it’s from the far right or the far left, it’s unacceptable for anyone to use “Stop the Steal” rhetoric to undermine our democracy.